Computer viruses

The Maltese Amoeba may sound like a cartoon character, but if it attacked your computer, you wouldn't be laughing.The Maltese Amoeba is a computer virus. It is a form of software which can 'infect' your system and destroy your data. Making computer viruses is only one type of computer crime. Others include hacking (changing data in a computer without permission) and pirating (illegally copying software programs).

Viruses are programs which are written deliberately to damage data. Viruses can hide themselves in a computer system. Some viruses are fairly harmless. They may flash a message on screen, such as 'Gotcha! Bet you don't know how I crept in'. The Yankee Doodle virus plays this American tune on the computer's small internal speaker every eight days at 5 p.m. Others have serious effects.They attach themselves to the operating system and can wipe out all your data or turn it into gobbledegook. When the Cascade virus attacks, all the letters in a file fall into a heap at the bottom of the screen. This looks spectacular but it's hard to see the funny side when it's your document.

Most viruses remain dormant until activated by something. For example, the Jerusalem В virus is activated every Friday the 13^th and erases any file you try to load from your disk. The Michelangelo virus was programmed to become active on March 6th 1992, the 517th birthday of Michelangelo. It attacked computer systems throughout the world, turning data on hard disks into nonsense.

Viruses are most commonly passed via disks but they can also spread through bulletin boards, local area networks, and email attachments. The best form of treatment is prevention. Use an antivirus program to check a disk before using it. Always download email attachments onto a disk and check for viruses. If you do catch a virus, there are antivirus programs to hunt down and eradicate the virus. The problem is that around 150 new viruses appear every month and you must constantly update your antivirus package to deal with these new forms.

Work in groups. Discuss how you can prevent these events.

1. Your files are accidentally destroyed.

2. Someone reads your private emails.

3. Someone copies software only you are authorized to use.

4. How many ways can you think of for protecting a computer from unauthorized use?

Try to answer these questions in your group.

1. What is a computer virus?

2. How are viruses spread?

3. How can you deal with viruses?

4. Name any viruses you know.

Do you think these developments will take place in the next ten years? Give your own views using the expressions listed opposite.

1. Computers will replace teachers.

2. Computers will direct surgical operations.

3. Computers will replace bus drivers.

4. Money will be replaced by smart cards.

5. Television sets will also be computers.

6. Speech will be the main way of inputting data.

7. Computers will talk back to you.

8. Most shopping will be done using the Internet.

9. Videophones will replace existing phones.

10. Flat panel screens will replace monitors.

Computing words and abbreviations

Put the words from the list into the correct box.

Address

Control

Data

Decode

Execute

Decimal

HTML

JavaScript